On the evening of November 6th, Nigel Gray posted on Facebook to warn people that an earthquake may be imminent in New Zealand. He concluded that as a result of the “Super Moon”, along with another recent earthquake, that chances were “higher for something down on this end of the globe”. A “Super Moon” is when the moon orbits earth the closest, making the moon appear larger than normal. He warned that this event might happen within a day or two of November 14th. He stressed that it was only a chance, and that readers should not be alarmed.

On November 14th, a 7.8 Magnitude quake rocked the North Canterbury region of New Zealand. It most likely caught just about everyone off guard. Everyone that is, except for Nigel.In the aftermath of the earthquake, the Facebook post was uncovered, and quickly became viral – being covered and reported by a number of news outlets. The post, since deleted, has attracted the attention of news outlets from New Zealand, to the UK, to the United States.

Adding to the story, there were reports of blue lights in the sky during the earthquake. Some terrified residents even posted videos of those lights online. Those videos also gained a large number of visitors. Many wondering what exactly was going on in New Zealand.

Geological experts however are stressing caution when it comes to predicting earthquakes. There is no consensus proving that the gravitational pull of the moon can cause an earthquake. However, earthquake expert Mark Quigley of the University of Melbourne admitted in a story on abc.net that he believed that tidal deformations of the Earth due to the movements of the Sun and Moon “could trigger” an earthquake in certain circumstances.

As for those lights in the sky; According to the United States Geological Survey, the lights are a natural, though unusual, phenomena known as Earthquake lights, or EQL. They are not completely understood, but thought to be an effect on the natural environment of some physical process associated with seismic ruptures, or seismic waves.